Children of vegetable farmers high up in the mountains of Atok, Benguet and the CHARM-funded farm-to-market road behind them.
(This article appeared in the 7 August 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Sagada, Mt. Province — Domingo Kelly is 63 years old and has been working in the farm all his life in this world-renowned scenic part of the Cordilleras. A third generation farmer from Ilocos Sur, he has no regrets with his chosen field despite his many hardships.
“I plant palay, then cabbage and carrots alternately throughout the year,” he says. It’s not enough to feed his family and he had to seek additional work to be able to make ends meet. But somehow he survived, even sending his seven children through high school. Only one of his children has followed his footsteps in the farm, even if he had enough land to provide each child with his or her own plots to toil.
Upland farmers in the Cordilleras are learning new ways to farm to help them better battle the natural elements in their rice and vegetable plantations. But new man-made challenges, mainly cheaper imports, have made their produce less palatable to the local market.
Under the $41.4 million Cordillera Highland Agriculture Resource Management (CHARM) project, farmers have doubled and sometimes tripled their earnings with irrigated farms, new infrastructure like bridges, farm-to-market roads and undergoing training in new farming methods. The Asian Development Bank provided almost half of the total project cost.
CHARM is a seven-year project that aims to reduce poverty in the Cordillera region by increasing incomes of smallholder farm families through improved agricultural productivity and the development of sustainable systems of resource management.
The project boasts of a good track record as it draws to a close this year, with a 99.63 percent physical performance accomplishment in the targeted poor beneficiaries in 82 villages in Abra, Mt. Province, and Benguet provinces or about 50,000 households. With the spillover effect of the project, other nearby municipalities indirectly reap the project benefits as well.
“I would want to believe that doing it the way we did will really be the way to do projects rather than the blueprint type,” says Cameron Odsey, Project Director of CHARM. “We really have to involve basically the primary beneficiaries of the project, who are the farmers.”
The community, including the indigenous people, was consulted and mobilized throughout the project, such as in managing the natural resources. This makes them stakeholders in the project and are committed from the planning stages up to its maintenance and upkeep, even after its completion.
“While this is a loan project, we were able to implement it successfully. It’s a very good investment,” Odsey says, which needs to be maintained now by the beneficiaries themselves with the project now in its final stages. Roads will now have to be maintained by the local governments; irrigation systems need to be maintained by the farmer-groups; the reforestation projects need to be maintained by the community.
Upland farming is difficult enough as it is, with the cold weather, lack of water, less yield, more costs, topography, and the distance it takes to transport goods as compared to lowland farming. Development activities cost more and takes more time and effort in the uplands. The yield is 50% less than in the lowlands which yield 3.5 tons per hectare. A farm-to-market road in the lowlands would cost less than a million pesos per kilometer; in the uplands, it is between P1.5 million to P2 million per kilometer.
Even at the start, the project was readily accepted by the local community some of whom are deeply-entrenched in the Igorot tradition. It is the first time that they were benefited by a national government project of this scale.
New and rehabilitated irrigation systems enabled farmers to harvest two to three times a year, instead of just once a year. The project has completed 151.35 kilometers of farm-to-market roads; 644.5 meters of spillway; 95.4 meters of bridges; 358.5 meters of foot bridges; 30 schemes of water supply; and 52 community irrigation systems/projects. In reforestation, it has established a total of 6,560 hectares of plantation (i.e. reforestation, agro-forestry, and enrichment planting) while maintained 6,150 hectares for forestry and 410 hectares for agro-forestry.
Catherine Kibatay, who owns a small store that has an overlooking view of an irrigated farm in Sagada, Mt. Province, notes the improvement in her community. “Abandoned fields are growing again; water is distributed evenly,” she says. “We thank the irrigation. It’s a good help to the farmers.”
It is in CHARM that the first ancestral domain title in the country was issued. To date, it has issued almost 130,0000 hectares of certificate of ancestral domain title and almost 100,000 hectares of ancestral domain sustainable development and protection plan, thus improving the land tenure in those areas.
For the agricultural support services component, farmers underwent a four-month integrated pest management course on ways to properly use fertilizer, avoiding the use of pesticides, its effects on one’s health, the kind of insects in the farm, and the insects that can cause crop damage. By inculcating to farmers the proper use of pesticides, its harmful effects and alternative ways to control pests, they were able to reduce by 70 percent the use of chemical pesticide.
“The war with pests goes on. There are emerging pests that evolve,” says Odsey. “What would be critical is for the farmers to be able to understand these things and not rely on pesticides. In the past, the moment they see a bug on the leaf of a cabbage crop, they would immediately spray it with pesticides without knowing whether that insect is indeed friendly or a pest.”
Trainings were also conducted on how to grow vegetables and what crops to plant. Research into high-yielding rice varieties for the uplands that can replace traditional varieties have had negative results though. Either the new varieties were unable to grow in the area or farmers were not able to harvest more than once a year as envisioned.
The major problem facing vegetable growers is the entry into the local market of cheaper and better imports. The vegetables that they grow have big and small sizes, while the market wants a uniform size. In addition, farmers’ children are educated or acquiring non-farming skills that lead them to fields other than the farms.
“It really affected the income of the farmers especially the vegetable-growing areas like Bauko, Sagada and Besao. Because of the cheaper price, they prefer the imported ones. The products of our farmers were deprived. The market price is very much lower. Like for carrots, they could sell it for P5, whereas our local carrots, we sell them at P15 to P20,” says Mary Buanzi, senior agriculturist of Mt. Province.
“We are encouraging them, our kababayans, to buy our own products. At least we are sure of our products unlike the imports. We do not know the process of producing it. They might contain too much pesticide or what. But at least if we buy our own, we know the processes that were done in the production of that product,” she adds.
Upland farmers toil on despite the natural and man-made elements that they face. They are used to the harsh conditions, as their fathers and grandfathers before them. But improvements in their way of life will ensure continuity of centuries-old traditions for many generations to come and for those who choose to stay put.
Domingo Kelly and the CHARM-funded canal that irrigates his farm in Sagada, Mt. Province.
